Permutations
by Dendrite Blues
Summary: Sequel to Reparations. Loki and Tony explore parenthood, Jotun biology, and ropes.
1. Chapter 1

This is a sequel to my work Reparations. If you haven't read that you are welcome to continue but there will be a lot of things that don't make sense. This is heavily AU. For those of you returning, thank you so much for coming along. For what it's worth, I'm very excited to be back in Buffalo with these two idiots and their spoiled rotten kids. Please enjoy this new period in Tony and Loki's lives.

A quick note on vocabulary: Jotun in this story are universally intersex. In the process of writing Reparations, I felt the need to invent some Jotun words for parents. Why would an alien society with no male or female have gendered names for family roles? So in this story "machem" equates to mother and translates to "carrier" while "aleha" equates to father and means "caregiver." These titles are unique to each child, since the same parent might have carried one child but sired their sibling, similar to how Loki was 'mother' to Sleipnir but 'father' to the other three.

Thank you to Wolfloner and buying_the_space_farm for beta reading and encouragement. :3

* * *

This book on human pregnancy is about as relevant to Loki as a schematic would be to a plumber.

Due to its childish tone and nauseating word count she suspects her blood pressure is high enough to threaten her baby's health more than any of the conditions covered in the text.

The mutant-only cruise was a good idea in theory, but in actual practice her sickness rather ruined the experience. During their eight day float along coastal Spain she slept more than she was awake. Between the bed, the theater box, and the poolside lounger she suspects she slept at least once on every deck.

In retrospect she ought to have kept on hibernating, since the following days were marked by rough weather that sent her head first into the toilet.

After six days of torment Tony dragged her and the children out for a shore excursion in Monaco, only to redirect their tour bus to the local customs office. A few hefty fines and signatures later she laid her head on a different lounger by a different pool and mooned over how very wonderful it was to have Tony back.

For his worth, Mister Stark did not waste any time after the Christmas debacle. His every other word seems to concern the baby, or some matter related to it—her.

She's convinced herself it will be a girl, although the book on her lap insists that at eight weeks the babe is the size of a raspberry. It is only just now growing arms, let alone legs and the organs between them. Not that the human standard of eight weeks can be trusted... which brings her back around to the problem at hand.

As far as she is aware her family are the first Jotun to set foot on Earth since the old wars. The child will be one of a kind.

There exist no books, no experts or warning signs. She has naught to settle her nerves but her sundered memory of Sleipnir's birth and Tony's irrepressible optimism. And so she is reading the useless human book because she must do something, and if the child is half-human then it stands to reason that the book must also be half-true.

She reads through the better part of the morning and ignores how very obvious all of it is. Of course she is tired, she is housing a parasite. Of course her breasts are swelling, they're filling to feed the baby. And yes, obviously they will be tender because swollen flesh of any variety is tender. With each page her patience thins as more and more unknowns amass in the back of her mind.

Will the child be Jotun? Will they look it? Will the heat and higher gravity of Earth harm them? And how long will she carry? Nine months seems a dreadfully short time. She thinks it took longer with Sleipnir, a good deal longer, but converting time between two realms is a question of how much sanity one is willing to sacrifice to the exercise. And she does not have overmuch of that resource to begin with.

Beside her, Tony is tucking into a sandwich with Jori napping in his lap. It's a relief to see him filling back out, although it hasn't been long enough for significant improvement. He always wants someone touching, she's noticed, and fortunately Jori is at an age where no amount of attention is enough.

Hela is teaching Fenrir how to swim, although Loki is certain he taught the boy when he was younger. Foolish child, forgetting something like that. They'd made an odyssey of it, had taken him to the great lake on Vanaheim and... and Loki hadn't been allowed on Vanaheim after the second war. Bother, perhaps it was Hela after all.

The familiar skitters of guilt have Loki's clawed hands itching to scratch but she balls them up in her skirts, rereading the line of text her eyes had skimmed but not absorbed. At seven weeks your little one is developing kidneys and will start producing urine by week eight. By the stars, is there anything humans won't talk about?

Now when she sees a toilet she is going to think about her misshapen, legless raspberry child urinating inside of her. Her nose wrinkles as she turns the page firmly enough that it rips an inch down the spine. Good riddance.

Tony glances up at the sound of the paper tearing. The weather is temperate here, even in winter, and so the tips of his dark hair glow gold in the sunshine. After a moment of unreadable staring he sets his food aside. Lovely, he wants to talk. Loki throws the book in the pool simply to avoid the lose-lose ultimatum of lying to him or discussing prenatal excrement.

Tony tracks the book's flight and inevitable plunge, and closes his mouth to rewrite whatever he intended to say.

"Not a fan?"

Fenrir picks up the soggy book between two fingers and shoots them a confused glower.

"No, I don't think I am," Loki shifts to lay on her side, although it's not nearly as comfortable. As fair as the weather is, she wishes she had brought her blanket. She'd like nothing more than to wind her fingers through the holes and doze.

"Aleha?" Fen mumbles with an arched brow. Again Tony starts to speak, but Loki beats him to it.

"Toss it over the fence, dear, we don't want pulp sticking to the deck."

"Any chance there's a Jotun edition of that?" Tony flops back on his reclined chair, the hood of his heavy coat bunching under his head and making his hair stick up in the back. Her heart does a stutter, hopeless thing that it is. She can see herself reflected in his oversized sunglasses. At some point she will stop being unsettled by her lovestruck reflection, by how she must look everytime she sees him. But not yet, perhaps not for a long while.

"The Jotun don't keep written records," Loki says.

"Of course they don't," Tony sighs. "Lucky for us, I hear there's a genius billionaire looking for a nine to five."

"Are you nominating yourself to be a Jotun historian?" Loki laughs, sharp.

"More like a geneticist–"

"Oh mercy, is this why you've been slamming your tablet closed when I walk in?"

"I might have made a proposal," Tony's lips spread in a caught me grimace. He retrieves his tablet and projects the display in the air. "Look it has a cover page and everything."

The Jotun Genome Project by Anthony E. Stark and Loki Liesmith

Loki scans the holographic abstract with narrowed eyes.

"Is this not exactly the kind of study we refused the security council?"

"Well we're not the Men in Black. Nobody's gonna use this to make weapons."

"When has anyone successfully stopped a weapon being made?" Loki returns to laying on her back. Tony looks like he wants to follow her around but he can't with Jori coiled in his lap.

"Fine, we won't publish it. No report, no website, no media." Tony strikes through the words on the holo and throws the file in the little garbage can in the corner of the screen. His pulse flickers in his neck like a light bulb about to go out. "But..."

The fingers of his free hand scratch at his chest and now Loki must bite her lip to keep from apologizing. How many times has he told her she is allowed to argue? Countless. Hundreds upon hundreds. Even so, her throat tightens and she feels a tension building in her shoulders. They've set a new record for maintaining harmony on this trip. She doesn't want the quarreling to return.

Tony huffs, and starts over. "Do you know that genetically there's only two percent difference between my DNA and a monkey's? Flip a few nucleotides around, change out a few amino acids, and I'm a four foot tall chimp painting murals with my poo."

"I did not know that, but I'll be sure to mention it the next time you fart in your sleep."

Tony rips off his sunglasses so she can see him roll his eyes.

"But don't you wonder? How different we are? Physically, physiologically?"

One word should not hold such sway as 'different.' Simply hearing it stated as a fact makes her want to crawl to the bottom of the pool. This is a matter she puts great effort into forgetting, regularly.

"So long as we're healthy I don't care," she hedges. He takes her hand, and the sudden dousing of energy, fear, and gripping, all-encompassing love feels like she has actually plunged into the water.

Tony meets her eye and she knows already she's lost.

"I do," he says, "I want to know how your body works. I want to know what your genes are like. And more than anything, I want to know for sure that the sprout's healthy. Which means I need to know what healthy is, for a Jotun." He threads their fingers and Loki's resolve crumbles. As always.

"There are no texts, only midwives."

"Then I guess we'll have to go to Jotunheim," He squeezes her hand.

She squeezes back.

* * *

It takes several days for Loki to give him a proper answer to go along with the unspoken one. Like a gentleman he waits, although not patiently and not silently. She counts her blessings that he has at least stopped trying to hide his plotting behind hastily opened news articles.

It happens, strange as it may seem, during bath time. Everyone but Hela is present, and over half of them are yelling for one reason or another. In other words, an ordinary evening.

Of all the unreasonable things to be upset about, it seems Jormungand is falling apart because the bathtub is 'too white.' She sincerely hopes he has mixed up his languages again, because if he is truly disturbed by that color then he shall find life in the new house rather unkind.

On the other side of the shower curtain, Tony is fielding an equally unreasonable rant from Fenrir while he applies itch cream to his horns, and since the situation cannot possibly get any more ridiculous she decides now is a good enough time to give her verdict.

"You aren't a life scientist," Loki says. More screaming, more complaining.

After a gruff 'hold still' Tony answers. "Give me twenty four hours and I can be."

"You will hire professionals," Loki growls, nearly cracking Jori's head on the tile in her efforts to pull him back under the shower head and rinse out his hair.

"Hey, I can hire professionals," Tony says in an exaggerated tone of spontaneous inspiration.

Someone knocks something plastic sounding off of the counter, and they are both abruptly diverted by the wet plop of Tony's brand new phone into the toilet bowl.

It's thirty minutes later while the children are occupied brushing their teeth that Tony resurrects the topic.

"Well we already have the human genome mapped," Tony says, setting a water-dotted plate in the dishwasher.

Loki tosses the last of the takeout containers in the incinerator and closes the latch. She does not know what a genome is. It sounds rather large, but perhaps she's over-associating it with the Aesir word for abyss. With a quick snapping of her fingers she burns the garbage to ash and enjoys the bite of stardust on her tongue, refreshing after a long day.

The water is far too hot when she knocks Tony's hands aside to wash off the 'germs' that she has grudgingly accepted are real. They can't harm her of course, but for Anthony's health she does whatever is necessary. He flicks soapy water on her cheek.

"Took about a decade. So add one genius, four and a half demigods, and a couple billion dollars…"

"And you will have a very expensive piece of paper with pretty graphs on it," Loki finishes.

Tony shares a very exasperated look with her, and turns off the faucet. He wipes his hands on a towel and shoves it in her face.

"Oh, look, you've got a little dirt on your everything. Let me help you with that."

Loki starts to feel rather masculine as he steals the towel and whips him over the head with it, although of course he can't change from Jotun with the babe in his belly. Just his luck, that he was blue that night and not merely female. Now he is stuck for as long as it takes to deliver, and far too tired to hold an illusion for long.

The improvised weapon strikes Tony's crown with a wet slap. A turnabout brews in his smirk until the little blighters run out in their nightgowns and reassert their power over him. It is a dangerous thing to give such small, ignorant beings so much sway over one's heart.

Loki drops the towel in the sink and pulls power from the Earth to fuel his retelling of the Man with the Iron Heart. When he grasps the content of the children's favorite story Tony slinks away, and Loki cannot blame him. He's a bit ashamed himself, that in his infinite lonesomeness he drafted a fantasy where his lover was a king and his enemies were goblins and the ghastly thing pried between his ribs was a warm light for all humanity.

The last sparks of his story time illusion dissipate into the bedroom rafters and Loki allows himself a moment of tranquility. There's room enough for the younglings to have their own bedrooms in the new house, but he isn't sure either of them are quite ready to be alone at night.

Fenrir's hair shifts in time with his slow, even breathing, the fairy lights giving the room a dim glow. Scrape marks dent the headboard from his horns and Loki wonders if that is the proper way of things, if he was meant to dent a headboard on Jotunheim before Odin made his own plans. Given time to think, he senses this is his real reservation with Tony's enterprise, with the whole business of researching. There are existential answers wise beings know not to seek.

The door slips open and Tony's shadow tickles Loki's toes. He leaves a light kiss on Fenrir's forehead because he is turning three hundred next year and some day soon he will decide that he hates everything, including bedtime kisses. Once done, he follows Tony to the extra bedroom where he has slept since they were forcefully parted.

It was not part of the original plan, but within a few weeks it became clear that he'd never get a moment to himself with his bed in the common room. The resulting renovation was a slapdash affair. Four bland walls just large enough to hold a bed, a wardrobe, and his numerous case files. It had a connected bathroom purely so he could get himself off in peace, and even that was devoid of the luxuries he used to consider non-negotiable. No shower, no towel hangers or cabinets, just a small mirror and a basket for his soaps. Now that Tony is here he wishes he'd put more effort in. At the time he hadn't cared for anything but the trial, but now the lack of care embarrasses him.

Thankfully Tony doesn't comment on it, he is too busy pestering him to the brink of madness.

"And what about Sleipnir?"

"What about him?"

"Well he's half...what? Horse?"

"Half-Jotun," Loki mutters.

The shameful truth, which he would prefer not to reveal, is that he hasn't a clue what Svadilfari was. Apart from phallically gifted and a terrible decision.

Nothing in the following argument bears repeating, particularly in retrospect, when Loki has the benefit of fully understanding Tony's words. He regrets it instantly, and then finds himself simpering into the bathroom sink because he feels so unreasonably guilty. By the time Tony enters Loki is holding his still-packaged toothbrush and crying with joy at his return. Five minutes later he recalls the damned pregnancy book's section on heightened hormones and stumbles over a surly apology.

Tony spits into the sink, pointing with his now foamy toothbrush.

"All I meant was, we should take a look at his DNA. He's probably the closest comparison we're gonna find."

"The only commonality Sleip has with the sprig–" Loki starts, only to stop.

The surveillance spell he maintains over the children infuses him with an energy so strong that his teeth momentarily ache. He sets his hairbrush on the vanity with a clack of wood on ceramic and wipes the lingering redness from his eyes.

"Nightmare?" Tony guesses.

"Thirsty. Which means a trip to the bathroom at two in the morning," Loki sighs.

"One, two, three, not it," Tony jokes, leaning down to swish water and catching his gaze in the mirror. Loki pierces him with a dour glare and prepares to out-stubborn a cranky child.

* * *

The bed is a peculiar anachronism in the otherwise modernized home. It hasn't changed since the construction of the cottage in the seventeen-somethings. Loki never had a head for time, let alone dates according to foreign realms, but it was some time after human men wore robes and before they wore pants.

Laying at his side is Tony, holding his tablet close to his chest and reading intently.

The book on gene inheritance is significantly less vexing than the one on pregnancy, but it does use much more advanced words. Loki has to stop every page or so to consult a dictionary, but once he grasps the meaning he finds it rather amusing. Pea plants, of all things, taught humans how they were created. How perfectly ludicrous.

It is the night of his dreams, despite all the bickering and blubbering. Tony's breathing is a soft vibrato in his ear, and the cool touch of his arm along Loki's side is a memory brought back into crisp realism. He is well on the way to passing out when Tony slips a hand over his and thumbs at his lines, following them ever so slowly up his wrist.

The sensation of weightlessness takes him by surprise. Not a literal lightness, but rather the emotional experience of diving into a pool. The sense of danger and novelty sending his blood pumping. Tony flips their hands over and the feeling fades, returning in intermittent spurts when he cradles Loki's knuckles in his shorter fingers. The flames of the bedside lantern catch Tony's lashes and flicker in the corners of his dark eyes.

"Yes?" Loki asks, blinking away the half-finished sentences rattling between his ears. Tony nods, as if that explains everything. Without a word he swings his feet over the edge of the bed.

An irrational fear overtakes Loki but he doesn't let himself panic. Now that he's aware of them, he slots his heightened emotions into place alongside the other symptoms which he must suppress as much as possible.

"What do you need?" he asks.

A slack smile gives Tony laugh lines beside his eyes.

"If I knew, you bet your ass I'd have you get it for me," he winks. "Read your book, I'll be right back."

Back from what, Loki silently demands, but he learned regret in the kitchen of a destroyed atmo shuttle and so he does as he's told. The book's words don't stick to his mind, even after he's shaken himself and made the font larger. Long minutes stretch by while the whistling wind and the creaks of the old house form a numbing white noise. Finally, Tony returns with cold feet and some kind of string tangled in his right hand.

"What are you doing?"

Tony sits on top of the covers in the too-small space between Loki's legs, shifting about until he widens his sprawl to accommodate. He takes his hand once more, and this time the freefall is less a leap into intriguing waters and more the sort of emotional precipice one feels just before speaking publicly.

Tony looks ready to abandon the whole enterprise, until he sets his brows. The feeling molds forcefully into a tiny spark of shuffling cue cards and clearing one's throat before a podium, and then Tony tilts his head to a challenging angle. He smooths out his features into a look that would weaken Loki's knees if he weren't already sitting.

"You know your safeword, use it if you want to. Otherwise give me your hands," he says in the voice he uses to speak to his robots. To his servants. Loki swallows around a tight throat and obeys.

Up close he sees that it isn't string in Tony's hand, but rather a pair of shoelaces. Two messy bundles pulled from the eyelets of his Aesir riding boots. He ties the ends together to make one continuous span and folds them in half, forming a U-shape around the middle. The makeshift rope is warm from Tony's touch when it first brushes his skin, almost ticklish in the way it grazes the ridges of his lines and the crop of fine hair on his arm.

His partner winds the rope around twice, and Loki finds he cannot look away. It's far from confident, the way he handles the improvised restraint, but there's grace to it. A promise of skill yet to be won, temporarily hidden within mere potential.

"What brought this on?" he murmurs, alarmed at how such a simple gesture can have his entire arm vibrating with seiðr. A flush prickles up his neck, a mirror equal to Tony's, which makes them a matched set. His partner shapes another loop from the slack and squints, turning the strings over and back and peering at his abandoned tablet.

Glancing to the screen, Loki finds a line of photographs with helpful captions underneath. Although there are body parts shown and foreign hands doing odd things to them, it isn't pornographic. It is hardly even suggestive. Helpful arrows are superimposed over the regimented loops of deep crimson rope, showing which directions to pull and wrap. A guide. Tony attempts to feed the loop under the coils around Loki's wrist and loses his grip. The whole thing devolves into a tangle.

"Can you not watch? You're messing me up." Tony huffs out a thick laugh, rubbing at his shoulder in poorly disguised embarrassment. "This is harder than it looks."

"Well you are using shoestring."

"Read your book." Tony huffs. He shakes his head and balances Loki's tablet on his lap, tipping his chin down in a clear command. With a gentle touch to his wrist Tony repeats the maneuver, his fingers slipping under the coils again and feeding it through. One last cinch and the cuff tightens, a sequence of orderly lines with a loop near Loki's thumb and a loose end trailing along the comforter.

Tony smiles. Real, spontaneous. Flush with the feeling of scritching pencils and graphite dust and another perfect score. It may be the most purely good feeling Tony has ever shared with him, the happy swell of learning and math and an equation solved exactly right. Before Loki has properly formed his own opinion, he knows he must give Tony that feeling again. Over and over if he can.

He unwraps his wrist, thumbing briefly at the chafed skin and then settling into repetitive practice. Loki tries to read. Not very successfully, but he tries.

He learns that genes come in sequences, like links in a chain. That all forms of life are built from a chemical code contained, identically, in every cell of their being. That some are dominant and others recessive, and that both must coexist within a system of replication in order for lifeforms to evolve and adapt. That it is part of nature for some traits to flourish in particular circumstances while others remain dormant and unexpressed.

He feels foolish, understanding so late what they've been discussing all night. Foolish, and somewhat wrong-footed. His origins are no great mystery after all. In a manner of speaking the answers have been lurking within his cells every moment that he has been alive, waiting for an over-inquisitive human to come pick the lock.

Chewing his cheek, he says softly, "Sleipnir will not be of any help until you have mapped my genome."

Tony turns the page to his own book, nodding along. The pictures have two hands this time.

"That's true," Tony agrees, his eyes never pausing in his reading. "But if we want to crack the code before the due date, we're going to need to map you both at the same time."

"We don't even know the due date."

For a splintered moment their eyes meet and Loki sees in the short alignment of irises all the fear Tony keeps to himself. Like a coward he returns his gaze to his own book, his heart hammering like he's been shocked.

The worn drag of the laces slithers over and under and around his wrists until there is hardly enough left to knot. Tony's cool touch brushes the underside of his arm, just long enough to fill his lines with beating, reinforced resolve, and then it is gone. His lover crosses one end over the other and pulls.

With a single tug everything contracts—the neat lines of shoelace, the captured beams of Loki's wrists, and the seething jumble of worry sluicing into his lungs. Tony binds it all with one self-possessed motion and when he cups Loki's hands again, all he feels is a glorious nothingness quickly filled with eraser shavings and success.

"I think I'm into this." Tony says, smiling at whatever look he finds on Loki's face. He leans in and Loki's bound hands become trapped between their chests.

Kissing him is very much like clinging to a buoy in a busy harbor, an anchor that becomes more precious the rougher the waters surge. He feels his lover's heart beat under the spread of his fingers, and madly imagines his own heart thumping in the same time.

His back presses into the padded headboard as Tony slots their lips into a soft, plying embrace that Loki welcomes with eagerness. The clench of the binding is tight, but his fingers are free and so he clutches at the fabric of Mister Stark's shirt even after his body has slipped away. His sigh becomes a lukewarm gust on Loki's ear.

"Are you with me now?" Tony asks, his arms slipping between Loki's back and the headboard, holding just tight enough to make the rope bite in a wonderful, distracting way.

The fear drains slowly, and Loki's head comes to rest on Mister Stark's shoulder. His fingers finally loosen from the wrinkles of the nightshirt, worming into the gaps between the buttons and pressing into the tough, scar-plowed skin beneath. He nods.

The kiss to his neck feels like a blooming bullet hole, pierced right through and bleeding wide petals of his insides out. Exposed for this man's eyes only.

"We're going to go to Jotunheim." Tony murmurs, "We're going to figure this out and everything is going to be okay."

It's another bullet. Poised in the chamber and ready to shred through the doubts Loki cannot banish on his own. Mister Stark's determination beats through Loki's lines and he can feel the prickle of seiðr pulsing from that chest and into his fingers. He wonders if Mister Stark knows the power he holds. If he knows that his force of will is a power all it's own, which the very fabric of the universe bends to accommodate.

Only a fool defies the heart wish of Tony Stark, and so Loki whispers back in a voice like rusted metal.

"Yes, Mister Stark."

* * *

Reviews are welcome, follows are fic fuel. Even if it's just an emote or a keyboard smash, it all helps. :)

(and thank you to Chris for the very kind review. It really made my day. ^_^ I now have a beta who is helping with my spelling!)


	2. Chapter 2

The great forge of Nidavellir puts off the kind of heat Loki cannot stand for very long, it's boilers bursting with molten stone and it's dwarven proprietor Ivaldi smacking away at an anvil like it absconded with his wife.

Loki stands nearby sweating bullets. For some reason he has a dildo in his hand.

"Now I hain't fallin' for none o' yer tricks, mischief maker," Ivaldi grunts.

"No tricks," Loki says, "No, sir, I tell you true! There is no lawn ornament on Midgard more fashionable than this."

The hammer falls in a fast rap of three hits, like a fist on wood. Loki's entire right side feels like it might burn off, it's so hot . Eyes aglow from the hearth, the dwarf inspects the dildo.

"Well it is a fine shape..."

"The finest," Loki agrees. "And supremely crafted! I will give it to you for no less than one hundred million dollars. A bargain, I assure you."

"One hundred million... Why that seems a right steal, it does."

"A theft," Loki nods fervently. "An injustice even, but for you I will part with it. My husband is coming you see, my very wealthy husband, and I want to make a good impression. I want-"

The ground shakes, and something stirs in Loki's gut. Something ominous.

"My, you're growin'," the dwarf remarks.

Indeed he is, and quickly.

With alarm he backs himself into a craggy wall and watches in horror as the lava bubbles up higher in the trenches and his stomach grows to cartoonish proportions. Swelling bigger and bigger until he can scarcely see over it, and all around him the bellows wail like crying infants.

"What a blessin'!" Ivaldi praises. "Like me gran' used to say, a babe is a blessin' on any house."

The growing turns painful, the heat absolutely stifling. All at once he wants out of his body, wants to call for help, but the dwarf is back at the forge pounding, pounding away and chanting— a blessin', what a blessin', a blessin' on any house.

Inside he feels the parasite stirring, stretching its limbs and already crying. Already accusing Loki of not loving it enough.

An indescribable pain sunders his stomach and he watches helplessly as the child claws through his skin, rending him apart. He screams, writhing in pain as the cruel beast emerges, red-eyed and grinning razor sharp fangs.

More creatures grow inside after the demon is expelled, trampling over one another to escape his wicked body. Primordial terrors fight for their freedom, gushing from his insides like a swarm of killer bees.

"Daddy?" they murmur as one. "Daddy?"

The ground quakes and cracks. He cowers, covering his ears and trying to block out the monstrous wails of his spawn and the ever-present clank of Ivaldi's hammer.

His open wound is birthing sludge demons now, horrible blobs of goo that wrap their misshapen hands around his wrists and bind them, and when he tries to free himself he is startled awake by a real hand on his wrist.

"Daddy," Jor whispers, shaking him, "Daddy, I need to potty."

Loki sits up, disoriented. His hands fly to his flat stomach and he discovers his eyes are wet with tears. He feels like he cannot breathe.

Tony snores behind him, and the sound jars him fully into reality. His bedroom walls are as low and claustrophobic as ever, the sheets a mess around his waist. His youngest squirms uncomfortably beside a stack of case file boxes.

"You know how to use the toilet," he rasps, rubbing sweat from his face.

"Tony said I should always tell an adult first."

Loki groans and stumbles to his feet. It does not matter to Jormungand that Tony said that twenty-five years ago. His youngest is a creature of constants. Once a rule is made he follows it dogmatically to the bitter end, and thus Loki has been woken just like this for a quarter of a century. Not to help his child relieve himself but to supervise his child relieving himself.

Wishing to spare Tony the midnight torment on his first night home, he leads the boy out into the corridor. Wordlessly, he opens the door to the children's shared bathroom and turns on the light.

"Go on, I shall be right here," he says.

"Thanks, Daddy," Jor yawns, and shuts the door behind him.

Sliding down the wall, he sits with his knees bent and tries to banish the disquieting after-images of the nightmare, the mass of ungodly creatures with their burning red eyes.

Not a moment too soon, the toilet flushes and light bathes the hallway.

"I finished."

"Did you wash your hands?"

Jormungand hides his hands behind his back and Loki sighs. Wearily he turns on the tap and pumps a liberal amount of soap on both of their palms.

"You mustn't forget, especially now."

"Cause Tony will get sick."

"Yes. We don't want Tony to get sick."

Jormungand appears contrite, perhaps even ashamed, but Loki doesn't have the energy to console. He barely has the energy to stand. Wiping the moisture away with a towel half-heartedly, he helps his son hop off of the stool in front of the sink and back along the hall to his room.

There is always a sense of loss when he enters the boys' room. It reminds him of how much of their childhoods he's missed. It feels ethereal to be there now, like a fever dream that will soon vanish. The soft fabrics in softer colors, the plethora of toys littering every surface, and the simple Midgardian design. He does not deserve a second chance, and yet here it is.

Fenrir has wound himself into his blankets like a moth in metamorphosis, and yet somehow his toes are still stuck out of the other end. By comparison Jor's bed is immaculate, the edges still tucked in with only one corner thrown back. He settles the boy back into his nest and sits at the end because he knows he will not be allowed to leave until Jor is fully asleep.

"Daddy can we read the caterpillar book?"

Loki is not sure he can read at all in his current state.

"You've already had a story tonight, it's time to sleep."

"Do caterpillars read stories?" Jor rolls to his side.

"No, they do not have a language," Loki mumbles. "Go to sleep."

The boy rolls on his other side, and Loki knows he will be here a long while this time.

"I'm not sleepy," Jor yawns.

"Yes you are, you're already halfway there." Loki leans his head back and rests his eyes. His body feels like dead weight.

Silence reigns for the space of two minutes, the winter wind howling on the other side of the old walls. Flashes of the dream return to him, and his fingers weave themselves into a tight grip of his belly. It won't be a monster. She. She will be beautiful and perfect. She will have Tony's bottomless eyes and his expressive mouth and his lovely brown hair. She will have as little of Loki in her as is genetically possible, and she will be loved by everyone she meets.

These are the things he tells himself, at every given opportunity, because the alternative is unthinkable.

He begins to drift, his consciousness melting into the floating smear of half-sleep, when Jormungand crawls under his arm and tucks his small hands under his shirt.

"What is it?" Loki mumbles.

The boy chews his lip, eyes down.

"When is Tony going back to the bad place?"

He purses his lips, stale guilt tainting his tongue. Tony's pride is unbreakable and he knows he could not have stopped him doing what he considered morally right, but his act of penance was not without collateral.

On one occasion he had won him a temporary release to attend Ms. Potts' funeral, and when the furlough ended Jormungand acted as though Tony had died along with her. He became unnervingly quiet, always staring out of windows. Loki took him to be examined and was informed by four different psychologists that his child was either fine (Dr. Allen), depressed (Dr. Morales), catastrophically stunted by early childhood trauma (Dr. Fuck Face), or showing signs of autism (Dr. Cho).

Annoyed by the numerous humans who seemed so eager to blame his child's eccentricities on his poor parenting, Loki decided the only problem plaguing Jormungand's psyche was a broken heart and put all of the doctors on the Do Not Call list.

Pulling his youngest onto his lap and wrapping his arms around him, he swallows down the residual guilt and anger and lays his hand on the boy's Jotun-marked head. The unfiltered emotion of a young soul reaches for him eagerly, and he answers it with what little serenity he can muster amid all the frustration and fear.

"Tony is not going away this time. He is staying here with us."

"For how long?"

Even now, Loki cannot bring himself to promise forever. He takes a steadying breath.

"For as long as he wishes to. And he does not wish to leave you, ever."

Tony may indeed leave again, but it would not be of his own volition. It would be in a wooden box. Jor leans into his touch, his eyes drifting closed as relief flows through their lines.

"I missed Tony," he whispers.

"I know, love. I missed him too. Now rest or you'll be tired in the morning."

Loki lays down on the too-small bed, and once again maneuvers his son under the covers. Someone should have warned him about this. The elders on Asgard used to speak only of children's joy, never of their sorrow or how deeply it wounds a parent to witness it.

"I love you, daddy," Jor yawns.

"Go to sleep, kærr."

"You're supposed to say 'I love you too.'"

"I love you too," Loki murmurs, his own eyes growing heavy from the dark and the quiet. "Now go to sleep."

With the little one under his arm he can't leave. His body is still hot but this close to the wall it is not so intolerable, and since his days serving in the military he has always been calmed by the sounds of others sleeping. Although he tells himself it is only for a moment, he allows his eyes to droop, and then it is not long until he's following his own instructions.

* * *

The morning comes too soon. Weak light wades through the heavy curtains, the barest trace of dawn coloring the room just-so-slightly pink. His stomach is in a riot, and his phone is ringing loudly from another room. Work. It's always work.

In moments he is on his feet and sprinting to silence the noise. Few things are as terrifying as children woken up before they are ready.

His communicator is a casualty of last night's quarreling, still laying uncharged on the kitchen counter. Anderson and Beauvou have both called him twice. He assumes it's to do with the mutant rights case which he has neither read nor researched. He can't quite bring himself to feel ashamed. They joined the practice with full knowledge of his priorities and where they stood on that list, which is to say last.

The communicator rings again, and this time it is their secretary Cynthia. She will have been ordered to call on every half hour until Loki answers. A shameful waste of her time, because he has no intention of working today. He ignores the call with a press of his finger, and nearly drops the phone when a heavy hand lays into the wood of the front door. More of a repeated bludgeoning than a knock.

He answers even though he is dressed only in a nightgown and socks because anyone who has come this deep into his property uninvited won't live to tell the tale.

Or perhaps they will.

"Good morning, your majesty," he greets flatly.

"Brother!" Thor shouts. "Good morning!"

Fenrir growls loudly from the boy's room, and with that the morning is well and truly wrecked. Despite the winter's bite Loki's skin feels unbearably hot and his stomach is making a mutiny worthy of a warrior's ballad. He is not in the mood for Thor's nonsense, not at all.

"It is nearly dawn," he says.

"Oh, I am aware! It took every ounce of my patience not to wake you. I've had the most incredible idea—a solution to our troubles—and I must have your counsel."

Thor attempts to come inside, but Loki steps into the snow instead and closes the door.

With Thor 'our troubles' are invariably Asgard's troubles. Ragnarok left its scars on his adopted people, and Loki is not candid in his growing dislike of them.

Numerous noble galaxies fell to the Aesir's armies, and yet now they are eager to weave a tale of injustice and victimhood to anyone who will listen. Oh, how the once shining people have fallen! How unfair it is that they should be refugees on a backwater planet, dressed in imported rags and living in garbage, oh the shame!

Loki has no patience for their self-pity, or their ample revision of history. The only time he suffers it is for Thor, and even then it is out of a dwindling sense of familial obligation rather than true empathy. With the nation in cinders, his mother dead, and Odin still asleep the man truly has nothing left.

This morning, however, Thor is not blubbering at all. He is not even red around the eyes. Instead he is vivid, energized. Loki wishes he had time to shower and pay homage to the toilet before having this conversation, but life never has been kind to him.

"Whatever it is, I want no part in it."

"You will, once you hear it," Thor bellows, leading the way to the bench by the pond where they have often weathered these brotherly consultations. If only he could charge for the service as he does for his legal advice. The dollar isn't worth what it was twenty years ago, after all, and he has bills to pay.

He sits, because even that short walk has winded him, while the oaf stomps around making broad gestures as he speaks.

"As you know our coffers have not been full for many years hence, and it has fallen to me to help our elders adapt to the ways of Midgard."

"Or not to adapt, as the case has been," Loki mutters.

"Aye," Thor nods sadly. "But that is exactly why this is such a marvelous idea, for the elders would not have to change at all, in fact it would be a boon for them to be so steeped in Asgard's past. You see I was speaking to the Lady Valkyrie-"

Loki's uneasiness becomes all-out dread. That horrible witch is an insufferable gossip, and in his infinite foolishness he allowed Tony to buy a lady's dress from her.

"Nothing too scintillating, I hope?"

Thor blinks.

"No? Why? Did something happen?"

"A turn of phrase," Loki says, waving his hand dismissively. "Never mind, tell me your idea."

His brother does not believe him, it is plain on his face, but thankfully he is here with a purpose.

"Well," Thor begins, "The lady told me of a kingdom far to the south, a marvelous place which I had never heard of before. It is a magical kingdom, home to a rich and colorful people. As I understand it, Midgardians travel there in droves to experience their culture, taste their food, and meet their wise and powerful ruler, King Mickey. They say it is the happiest place on Earth."

Loki puts his face in his hands. It's too early for this.

"Valkyrie showed me a paper book-"

"Magazine," Loki corrects.

"-which claims this kingdom earns billions of dollars every year. Every year, Loki! Simply by opening its gates to tourism."

"Odin's beard, Thor, you truly are a fool."

"And we have culture! The humans have studied fables of our might and heroism for nearly a thousand years," Thor carries on with even more intensity. "All this, and you must admit that I am more pleasing on the eyes than a mouse. Why the only thing this Mickey has which we do not is a castle!"

"This is a prank. You have been mislead."

"No, it is a good idea. You have simply been steeped in misery too long to appreciate it," Thor crosses his arms and frowns. Predictable. He never did like to be told no.

Loki scowls, gathering his robe tighter around himself and standing up in a huff.

"Well thank you for visiting, it is always so lovely to hear your woes-"

"Brother-"

He stomps down the hillside and wonders why he hasn't blocked Thor from entering his wards. It's not as if he ever has anything useful to say. More than half of the time he visits only to complain about New Asgard's latest squabble, and when it isn't that he comes seeking advice that he then refuses to heed. It's a waste of time.

Thor's heavy boots sink deep into the snow as he attempts to follow, his bulk and stature ill-suited to Loki's untamed domain.

"I spoke out of turn," he says. "Come back, I don't mean to bicker."

"If you are so certain then I don't see why you need my counsel. By all means, whore out your heritage for the Midgardians' amusement."

"I have always valued your insight," Thor calls as Loki wrenches the door open. "Would it not be a blessing to put funds in the nation? You know our struggles."

"Your struggles."

Thor stops, his breath clouding out of his mouth from the cold. He doesn't understand. He never understands.

"I had hoped we could embark on this endeavor together."

Loki tries to have pity, but his head is pounding and his stomach is churning and he can hear his offspring warring already after only five minutes of being awake.

"In case it has escaped your attention, I have my own troubles to contend with," he snaps.

Fury seems to gush from absolutely nowhere, a potent frustration that he's kept sharply under wraps. Sparks crackle out of his fingers as he lowers his voice and rants in a bitter hiss.

"I have business partners who call me at all hours of the day. I have children who need care and a partner who cries over a cup of coffee because he cannot fathom how good it tastes. I am trapped in this repulsive form for an in-determinant amount of time, and on top of all that I have a bloody parasite sucking the life out of me. You tell me, Thor, do I have time to worry about your problems? Do I?"

Though he was aiming for anger, Loki misses rather significantly. His brother's face falls into something much worse—pity.

"You would if you allowed others to help. I only hear of such things when you are already struggling, and then you punish me for not knowing what you did not confide in me. We're family, we're meant to share our burdens."

"Perhaps a better brother would not need to be told," Loki stiffens.

Thor sighs, pulling his cloak closer around his shoulders.

"Do you know what I think, brother? I think you don't want to be happy."

"Rubbish-"

"Because," Thor speaks over him, his face infuriating in it's placidity, "you're afraid of being the slightest bit vulnerable to anyone. And if you weren't miserable, then you could not use your suffering to push away those who would love you."

Loki doesn't know what the big oaf is on about.

He would love to be happy. He would love nothing more than to leave this misery behind, but the rest of the world simply won't let him. It's not his fault that he's overworked, over-scheduled, and underappreciated—it's the damned human's fault.

If only they could get their sloppy, illogical governments to function properly then Loki wouldn't have to go to court and explain to them that they have incarcerated thousands of innocent men, or go to world leadership conferences and explain that the Asgardians are refugees regardless of where they originated.

He wouldn't have to barge into the offices of department store owners and demand that they stock clothes appropriate for non-gendered persons or correct every single journalist who describes him as a 'humanitarian' when it is plain as day that the defendant in his case against the world is himself, not the blasted human animals that can't even share an elevator without saying something racist.

Rage fueled and fuming, Loki seizes the door by the handle and snaps it open.

"I think it's a dreadful idea, and I hope you all burn," he shouts, slamming the door.

Even through the thick stone wall, he hears Thor's reply, although he would much rather he didn't.

"I love you too," he shouts, "See you next week."

Loki wants to stick his head in the fireplace.

"Uncle Thor?" Hela asks, hir fist rubbing at one eye as ze walks in from the hallway.

"Journalists," Loki grumbles. He kicking off his sloppy socks.

"Mmhmm," his oldest nods. "Sure."

He stalks toward his room— his and Tony's room— and finds his lover dangling from the rafters. Because there is always room for a day to become even more confounding.

Tony glances down, his arms bending as he pulls himself upwards and grunts. Loki's phone rings again and he spikes it into the laundry basket so hard that the top layer of clothes fly out from the recoil.

"What was all that yelling about?"

"What on Earth are you doing?" Loki growls.

"Pull ups," Tony grunts. A drop of sweat falls down the muscles of his back as he demonstrates. "I always worked out first thing before role call, force of habit I guess. I felt weird laying in bed, so I figured I'd just... you know."

He does another repetition and Loki's eyes wander a bit far for polite company. His fiance is naked apart from a pair of prison-issue exercise shorts that barely cling to his hips and the gold necklace Loki gave him for their tenth anniversary. After one more bend of his arms he drops down and wipes the sweat from his forehead.

A piece of his ear is missing from an altercation with the Russian mob and a jagged, repulsive tattoo defaces his right shoulder from the year he'd been forced to bunk with a white supremacist and only gang affiliation had kept him from being stabbed in his sleep. Loki's name is branded around his wrist in a scarred ring and a crevice is carved deep into his sternum where the arc reactor used to sit.

He looks like a thug, to put it bluntly, and although none of this is new information it still unsettles Loki to see him—the dissonance between the Anthony he remembers and the man he's been forced to become. A man who respects rules and follows routines.

The only emotion more stubborn than Anthony's need for atonement is his own guilt over allowing him to do it. He wishes they could erase the last twenty years, but that would only deny Tony his peace of mind. To remove him from his heroics would be like sifting salt from the sea. One might make clean water, but all life in them would die. Still... he mourns.

The trials of the morning catch up to him as he stares at Tony's chest and tries to think of something to say.

Now is a good time to discuss his misgivings. They are at loose ends; the last era of their lives decidedly at a close and the next one only just beginning. He knows there will not be a better time than now, but he feels wretched and Tony's body is loose and relaxed. He looks happy, flush from exertion with his hair sticking up at whimsical angles, and Loki is tired of ruining his good moods.

But of course Tony doesn't realize he's thinking such things. He thinks Loki is admiring his physique.

"Ready for a field trip?" his fiance asks, blatantly posturing, sucking in his non-existent gut.

Loki buries his doubts in the back of his mind and pretends to be fondly exasperated.

"Get dressed, heathen."

"What, don't like the show?" Tony teases, flexing. "I thought you liked my prison bod."

"I like it better with the door closed," Loki rolls his eyes. "It is a good thing we don't live in the city. The women would kidnap you in an instant and have their wicked ways."

He attempts a retreat into the adjoining bathroom, but an arm blocks his path.

"What did Point Break want?"

"Nothing."

Loki ducks under Tony's arm only to be captured from behind in an embrace. Tony rocks them side to side like this is all a frivolous game. Cat and mouse, check and mate. It isn't though, it is the most serious matter Loki can think of.

"Tell me what's wrong," Tony prods.

"Let go-"

"Tell me and I'll let go."

What is wrong is everything, but this is not the answer Tony wants.

Whether he knows it or not, his fiance wants him to be a certain type of unhappy. He wants him tired or hungry or stressed or ill because these problems are tangible. These are problems Tony can solve like the engineer he is.

But Loki's problems are not simple. They do not have tangible solutions. His problems are anger, self-hatred, a distrust of the world at large, and the solution his mind suggests is far worse than any of these.

So when Tony asks him what is wrong he never knows what to say. Either he dons a mask of his own face and insists that everything is fine or he answers honestly and plunges them into another circular conversation about his incurable cognitive distortions.

The long silence sobers Tony's mood. He steps so they are face to face, and Loki wants to run.

"You're worrying me, Slugger," he frowns, leaning in so he can see him through the hair in his face. Loki steps away.

"I told you, it's nothing," he swallows. "Nothing we have not already discussed."

Callused hands encircle his wrists and pity, worry, love rushes through him. He flinches.

Tony lets go, and somehow that makes him feel worse.

"Maybe we should postpone the Jotunheim thing-"

"No! No, I want to go."

"You look worse than you did before the trip."

"I'm just tired. Jor woke me up. It's nothing."

Steadying himself, he takes Tony's hands and bears the brunt of his anxiety if only to prove that he can. To prove that he is fine and his partner is being dramatic.

Tony looks ready to start a proper argument when Fenrir struts through the bedroom door screaming. Why must they always be screaming?

"Dad! Jori's messing with the toaster again!"

Belatedly, Loki smells burning.

Tony groans. "Kid, has no one ever told you about knocking?"

"Look what he did to my waffle!" Fenrir whines. "It was the last one!"

"I'll go," Loki says lowly, eager for the escape, but Tony is already pulling away.

"Now whose fault is that?" Tony takes the plate from Fenrir and inspects the charred food. "If you were there and you didn't stop him, then you're at fault too, bud."

Fenrir grumbles all the way to the kitchen, and Tony follows. Loki should not feel so relieved.

Alone at last, he attempts to center himself with the rituals of the morning. Hair brushing and clothing selection, an inspection of his face to determine whether he should shave today or tomorrow. The smell of his toothpaste makes him gag, which in turn makes his newest ritual—vomiting his entire stomach contents every four to six hours—much faster than usual.

As he is making his second attempt at dental hygiene Jormungand comes to jump on his bed and chatter, as is their routine. He is supposed to wait quietly until Loki is ready to dress him, but after the bouts of melancholy he is loath to discourage any manner of talking.

Today, it seems he wants to tell Loki about boats. Does he know that humans invented boats a very long time ago? Does he know that boats can cross the ocean? Only the big ones, of course. The little ones only go in rivers or lakes, but those don't have swimming pools or dining rooms.

Evidently the cruise left an impression.

Loki listens with half an ear as he adjusts the fur at the top of his Jotun war harness. It's a mockery on him, but it will help them immensely to blend in. The Iron Wood is not a place open to outsiders.

For a handful of minutes he nods along, fussing with the uncomfortably revealing garments and questioning his own decision to leave the dark circles under his eyes uncovered by makeup. Then Jor stops jumping, and he pivots on pure parental instinct.

The boy has a shoestring tangled in his hands and wound twice around his forehead.

The shoestring.

"Jor-"

"Look, I'm a mummy!"

Sense memories of Tony's lips on his neck make his face burn, and he runs to unwind his son.

"You will be when you choke to death, good graces child, you'll be the death of me," he rants, frantically untangling.

Jormungand pouts. "But daddy-"

"Enough, let's get you dressed," Loki snaps, tossing the shoelace under the bed in absolute mortification.

Ducking into the boys room he extracts his youngest's Jotun clothing from the bottom of the drawer and Jormundand's revolt intensifies. The boy hates clothes, full stop, but he especially dislikes the tribal leathers. Without magic to aid him he loses control of the situation rather quickly. Jor is both nimble and capable of phasing through walls. In no time at all he is dashing from the room, his sleep clothes a pile on the floor and his Jotun leggings tangled in Loki's horns.

Darting into the hallway after him, he has to squeeze past Hela who is hammering the bathroom door with hir fist. Further down he catches a glimpse of a naked blue buttocks disappearing in a cloud of black smoke, and what was left of his optimism wilts. Tony is coughing, and waving his hands through the air.

"Tony, good gods," he yells.

The kitchen is in shambles. Raw pancake batter has been splattered on everything within a meter of the stove, which is itself engulfed in flames as tall as a saucepan.

"Hot damn, Lokes, these appliances are heavy duty!" His fiance laughs with ash smeared on his nose, "Is there a way to turn this down?"

In his rush to douse the fire, Tony has broken the extendable faucet on the sink and water is shooting across the room, soaking Loki's favorite chair. Burnt food covers the table, now soggy from the water, and Jormungand is bent over stealing chocolate chips from a jar that must have fallen and shattered at some point.

"Either shit or get off the pot, I need the shower!" Hela screams behind him, to which Fenrir returns a long stream of muffled curse words and Loki can only think of the night he got the news that Tony's release had been approved.

He had not slept in his bed in two weeks. He was tired, sore, his throat raw from retching. Thor had thoroughly destroyed the house in the time he'd been babysitting, along with any semblance of discipline Loki had managed to instill in his brood. He was jet-lagged, woozy, and desperately lonely, but through sheer force of will he had gotten the children to sleep. He had mended the broken window and righted all the furniture, put away the leftover food. As the clock ticked on past midnight he had eaten a dinner of cold yogurt and scrubbed the house from floor to ceiling.

Until dawn he refused to stop until the house was worthy of Tony's presence, emptying every cupboard and sterilizing every crevice of every cobble. He'd worked until he physically couldn't do any more, and then he had laid on the still-damp floor and cried because soon it would all be over. Soon Mister Stark would return and set his life in order.

He'd been so hopeful that night. Proud of himself for surviving, if only by the skin of his teeth. Despite his nerves and his changing body he'd laid on the floor and sobbed happy tears in anticipation of good things to come.

And now, in the same spot, surrounded by mess and chaos and disaster that brittle, restorative hope dies.


	3. Chapter 3

Content warning for discussion of self harm, pain play, and knives. Non-gorey but very frequent descriptions of blood. Generally unsafe practices.

Please read very cautiously if you struggle with self harm. As much as I endeavor to write about these subjects sensitively, this chapter can be read as romanticizing pain and could trigger some readers.

* * *

"What have you done?" Loki yells, dragging Jor away from the shattered glass—and consequently the chocolate chips, which makes him fuss and yell. Always, so much yelling.

Tony is laughing over the flames like a madman.

"Is the destruction of my home amusing to you?" Loki fumes, shoving the child into his hands and turning off the gas on the stove.

Hela bangs on the door again, and that is Loki's last nerve.

"Quiet!" he screams, "Am I raising literal animals?"

The children all freeze, staring with alarm. The sink continues to spray the sofa.

"Have I given any of you the impression that it is acceptable to run amok like bloody savages?"

No one moves.

Then, from the other side of the bathroom door, the toilet flushes. Fenrir peeks out through a sliver in the doorway.

"Have I?" Loki demands. He meets Tony's eye and his partner looks spooked.

His gaze tracks upwards. Then he snorts. The man he thought would always have his back descends into giggles. Even as Jor works himself into a tantrum, he looks positively delighted.

"What, Tony, what exactly is so funny?"

"I'm sorry," he gasps, "I can't take you seriously with a loincloth on your head."

"Then you get him dressed." Loki rips the garment off his horns and throws it at Tony's chest. "You clean up the mess and listen to them shriek and you can laugh as much as you want to-"

"Come on, I'm not laughing at you," Tony follows him down the hall.

Loki slams the bedroom door, but Tony stops it just before closing. Loki puts his weight against the wood and very quickly they're locked in a stalemate.

"Oh, real mature," his partner grunts. He shoves his shoulder in the jam and Loki nearly loses his balance. "It was an accident, I can't help that tech these days is stupid and unintutive-"

"It's not about the kitchen, you imbecile."

"Well then what the hell is it about? I noticed, okay, you can't pin this on me. I asked and you blew me off."

Loki slides down the door. His throat burns from yelling.

"I just thought you would help, but clearly I can't leave you alone for five minutes either. Honestly, how hard is it to–"

The latch finally clicks as Tony's weight leaves the other side. Loki stops in his tracks.

"Tony?"

All he hears is bodies moving and Jor's subdued wailing. Dishes clatter into water.

The front door opens and closes.

His whole body tenses as if awaiting a blow. Surely he misheard.

"Tony?!"

Long moments he waits for a sign of life but the house is frozen in space. Sinisterly still.

They left.

Tony left.

His phone rings yet again and he thinks he should call his therapist. She would tell him what she always tells him. He needs to be kinder to himself, he needs to eat well and exercise, he needs to keep in mind that a bad day is just a bad day.

Instead he reaches for a tangible solution. Under his bed he keeps a carved wooden box that smells like his mother. It's where he keeps his knives. If feeling well is out of his reach then he will settle for feeling nothing.

Mister Stark would not like this box. The thought only stills his hand for a moment.

Inside it is velvet lined, divided into rectangular compartments and slotted so the knives hover in horizontal stasis. A bit like Loki himself. Uncomfortable but unmoving, dangerous in the wrong hands. Even as he takes one from its holder he doesn't know what he intends to do with it.

It's a push knife, the blade scarcely the length of his little finger with a horizontal handle for stabbing. Not long enough to disembowel, not sharp enough to slash. A child's toy.

Master Gofriedr surprised him with it long ago because Loki was of an age where any boy ought to have his own blade. Because a servant of the crown could not stand between Loki and the crown prince. Loki had loved it from the moment he opened the sheath.

It has a blade of solid arcanite, its handle lacquered to a shine and the haft engraved with a sigil of the sky dragon. A beast admired for its ability to adapt and thrive in even the harshest environment, his tutor had explained.

From the moment he felt its weight in his palm Loki felt safe.

A lifetime later he holds the dull blade to his chest and closes his eyes, searching for that feeling again. He searches for a long time, but it's hard to find in a room so still, in a house so suddenly muted.

Mister Stark left, he cannot think clearly. He left and it's his fault. It's always his fault because he can't do anything right, even when he has dedicated every ounce of his energy to doing things right he can't—

The front door opens.

He sits up like lightning as boot heels pass over the doormat and then the floor.

Tony calls.

No one has ever opened a door so fast.

The home smells like char, but the air is no longer smokey. From the portal in the door, the grey spire of the Iron Wood stands sentinel over icey, white banks.

Tony has dots of snow in his hair. He is in boots with no laces and a cloak that hangs low over his prison shorts and borrowed Xavier Institute hoodie. Despite every good reason to be angry he is calm.

Loki watches him unfasten his cloak and kick off his boots uneasily. He has a leather bag in his hand with Angrboda's seal on the flap. A seal of protection.

"You owe the kids an apology. Yelling like that," Tony runs his fingers through his hair and pulls the door closed behind him. "And Angr, for that matter. They weren't exactly expecting to have the brats dumped on them out of the blue."

"That was not my decision."

"Well they couldn't stay here, could they?"

Now Tony looks angry. Very angry.

"What's your number?"

"Two."

"Two? Oh but you're fine, right? Totally fine. Fuck's sake, Loki."

"And what are you to do about it? I've been sick for weeks, half of Asgard considers me their personal errand boy, I've barely been home four days in the past three months, and the children treat me like a fucking servant. No matter how much I sleep I'm still tired and-"

His bloody phone rings.

"And the worthless, incompetent sow's spawn at work will not leave me alone!"

Loki throws the knife in his hand at the wall and Tony startles.

"Okay, first of all, do you have any more hidden weapons I should know about?" His partner scowls, tossing aside soiled clothes until he finds the howling communicator.

"Cynthia?"

"Ignore it."

Tony holds the camera in front of his face and Loki's jaw drops.

"No, what are you doing, stop-"

"Hello?"

Loki throws himself behind the bedroom door before anyone can see him in his ridiculous furs.

A woman's clipped, professional voice sounds like a bee humming in his ear. The phone is designed to be private despite the distance needed to capture video. Tony takes charge before the woman can get more than a few words in.

"Hi, Cynthia, right? This is Tony speaking, Loki's—yeah, that's right. A-huh. A-huh."

Loki peeks out in time to catch Tony's amused expression and shoot him a pleading look.

Tony rolls his eyes, nodding along to whatever is being said to him.

"Listen, I'm gonna level with you here. This kind of round-the-clock calling has to stop. His voicemail says very clearly that his office hours are nine to five weekdays. A-huh. Tell me, did Anderson and Beauvou pass their bar exams?"

Even muffled as it is Loki can hear Cynthia's affront.

"It's a yes or no question," Tony says.

Loki puts his head in his hands and tries not to drown in mortification. His partner sounds like a PTA mother in the principal's office.

"And do they not have twenty years of combined legal experience, like all their ads claim?"

"Tony, she's just doing her job–"

"Then it seems to me that they should be more than capable of conducting business without Loki," Tony says with a dagger grin. "So do me a favor, Cynthia, and pass that along. Nine to five. Weekdays."

The small face on the communicator winks out. Tony throws the phone back in the hamper.

"That was unnecessary," Loki grumbles.

"Speak for yourself, it was driving me batty," Tony huffs. "Who do they think they are, calling you on the weekend?"

"It's normal these days," Loki sits on the bed and slouches. "I don't need you to fight my battles. All you've done is make my completely excusable absence a talking point at the water cooler."

"Then fire them."

"What?"

"It's your company. If they give you shit, kick 'em out." Tony scratches at his beard, and tips his head. "You know, that might be the issue here."

As ever, being the subject of Tony's complete attention pricks his skin with equal parts pleasure and anxiety. Being known so deeply is a double edged sword.

He draws out the moment hoping to avoid implicating himself, but Tony expects an answer.

"That I am a weak leader?" he says stiffly.

Predictably his answer disappoints Tony. He sits at Loki's side and squeezes his knee.

"You have every right to tell people no, but you don't. Even when it's obvious that you don't want to, you still end up doing shit for them. You need boundaries."

Perhaps his lover is right. Had he turned Thor down at the door he would have the energy to argue now.

"Why do I need boundaries when I have you?" he asks in a mocking monotone.

Tony answers with a smile he thinks wasn't meant to be so fond.

"So what's this about?" His lover taps the knife box with his foot.

Loki flops onto his side, hugging himself and staring at the carved fleur-de-lis on the headboard. Tony knows very well what it's about.

"I wanted to feel better."

What a disgrace he's become. Mumbling, he never mumbled in the palace.

Tony stops his raving with a hand on his crown. He trails his fingers along the back of Loki's ear and tucks his loose hair in. He hates how good it feels, how much he would debase himself to feel more of it.

"By hurting yourself?"

"Hurt and harm are not always one and the same."

Loki has spent enough time contemplating it since he realized that others consider pain a sensation to be fully avoided. It isn't that he's defective. His nerves twinge and muscles ache like anyone else, but after it fades he's left with a plethora of novel side effects to enjoy.

A shallow sting will make him laugh, while a heavier blow may well have him keening and his length growing heavy between his legs. Should he stroke himself while he endures it he will come harder than should be physically possible, and unlike normal orgasms those tinted with pain seem to linger on and on.

And it is not only a physical pleasure. So much of him has been disconnected from his body—from the body he had to accept was never really his—that in the throws of such intense experiences he feels unequivocally present. There is a union of his consciousness and his outer self in those moments that cushions every blow with a heady sensation of being fully, viscerally alive.

Harm, by contrast, is nothing but pointless destruction. Whether by rage or jealousy or sheer lack of forethought he has placed wounds on his own psyche which still sting and bleed, and he feels a small degree of irritation that Tony thinks he doesn't know the difference.

"And which were you after?" Tony asks.

Loki fidgets. "I just wanted to stop thinking."

"But why not just make yourself feel good? Or ask me to?"

That, Loki does not have an answer for. It simply isn't what he wants.

"Why did you used to drink?"

His lover's hand still in his hair. Then Tony stands and Loki prepares to be left alone again.

His lover paces the perimeter and pulls the knife from the wall. The box comes to rest in the center of the bed. Loki's breath stops arriving in even allotments.

"Are these clean?" Tony asks.

"I am immune to any Earthly disease."

"I mean are they sharp? Do you take care of them?" Tony rolls his eyes. "Brat."

"Yes, sir," he says quietly. Hope turns his words half-reverent, although he is resisting it with every fiber of self control. Tony has not promised anything yet.

His lover turns the blade in his hand.

Then he holds the handle to Loki.

"Show me."

"You're joking," Loki searches his eyes for any trace of doubt.

Tony holds it closer.

"Show me how you would do it, if you wanted it to feel good."

"It's not as if the pain is any different, it's a matter of perception," Loki murmurs, snatching the blade and returning it to the box. "Single edge is better."

Intelligent eyes track his hand as he selects something more suitable. A mythril fixed-blade.

The design is utilitarian. A simple handle and an edge enchanted to self-sharpen after use. He bought it during the wars while he was stationed on Alfhiem, and it still carries a touch of the light elves' magic. Even his Jotun hide will split easily beneath it.

He meets Mister Stark's gaze and shivers. The blade quivers from the shaking of his hand as he sets it to the slope of his forearm. He swallows.

"I didn't do this while you were away."

He needs Tony to know. For some reason he can't make his hand slice.

It would be wrong, wouldn't it? It's very explicitly against the rules.

And would it genuinely help Tony understand?

No. He wouldn't know the drag or the pressure, he wouldn't know how the pain dallies until well after it's cut. He wouldn't know the plunge of fear that comes from the tip puncturing living flesh.

"Okay," Tony's brow creases.

"I just-" he stammers, pulling the blade away and shaking his head. "I was good, I want you to know that."

"Do you not want to do this?"

"No!" Loki says too forcefully. Color creeps up his cheeks. "No, I want to. Only...can I show you another way?"

This could be a mistake, he could be in the process of ruining yet another good thing but he needs Tony to understand.

"You're the expert, do whatever you need to."

Loki chews his cheek. He should have expressed his intent more clearly.

Holding on to his partner's wrist, he sets the blade to his forearm and asks with his eyes. Tony doesn't look especially eager.

"Go on. I trust you."

Blood rushes in Loki's ears, and before he can lose his nerve he turns the blade so the dull side is down and drags the pointed tip from Tony's wrist to his elbow. Goosebumps raise his hair on end, and Loki spreads a tight smile.

"The first cut hurts the worst. Somewhere between two and five I will feel lightheaded, and from there anything is fine."

Choosing a spot high enough that sleeves will cover it, he turns the blade to the sharper side. Concentrating hard, he pulls it as delicately as possible and manages to slice without drawing blood. Were it not for his hand holding Tony's wrist he would have forced it a good deal deeper.

"Hold still," Loki murmurs. "If you're not still I can't control the depth."

"This is weird."

"Do you want to stop?"

Tony presses a thumb on the near-invisible slice and frowns.

"I expected it to hurt more."

"I only cut the first layer," Loki moves further down and prepares another run, pressing firmly and holding Tony's arm tight. This time it bleeds.

"Motherfucker!" Tony slips out from his grip and cups his arm in his other hand.

"Oh don't be so dramatic, it wasn't that bad."

"Like hell it wasn't, that hurt like a bitch." Tony curses, wringing his hands and staring at the blood welling up.

Loki crosses his arms and waits, watching as his partner paces.

"And now it doesn't," he estimates from experience.

Tony returns to sitting, brows furrowed as he presses curiously at the seeping wound.

"It's... buzzing."

"Yes," Loki hunches, anxious from Tony's unreadable expression.

"Geez, it's bleeding a lot."

"Yes."

He mustn't look too eager, he mustn't make Tony feel obligated. It's so difficult though, they are so close. So close to a boundary he always wanted to cross.

Tony was right to outlaw it, he knows that to be true. Back then he was not responsible, nor was he any degree of safe. But things are not as they used to be and perhaps that is not entirely a bad thing.

Gripping his elbows, he watches Tony get up and steal a towel from the bathroom with tension bracketing his spine. When he returns he is settled, and his eyes project a calm resolve that makes Loki weak.

"Where do you want them?"

Loki stammers. He doesn't know.

"Legs are accessible?" he says roughly. He must look indecently hopeful. "Or on my back. There's more room."

"It's not an office space, Slugger," Tony sighs. "Where would you be most comfortable?"

Loki grips his knees.

"I'd like to watch."

"Legs it is, then."

The knife glints in Tony's hand when he takes it to the sink for cleaning. Something like anticipation tingles all the way to Loki's toes.

He fusses with the pillows out of sheer impatience, and slips the fur harness from his shoulders. The pants are hard to lose, if only because he's sweated in them and the leather is stuck.

Dark voices wonder if he isn't forcing Tony's hand, if this isn't Loki's poison spreading in the guise of something pure. But then Tony returns with bandages and he forces his body to unwind.

Laying on the bed he feels exposed, his skin bare for Tony's looking and silently reaching out for his touch. His cool hand takes Loki's ankle and makes a space for himself between Loki's legs.

"You know this doesn't change any of the stuff that's bothering you."

"I'll feel better," Loki intones. He doesn't want to feel guilty about this too, but all the discussion is getting him there bit by bit.

Tony runs a hand from his hip to sternum, and his lines feed him flickers of doubt and determination. Tony does not believe him.

"I will."

"No safe words, stop means stop."

Loki nods, and moves his hands to the pillow under his head. He has never done this with anyone else. Expert or not, his pulse hammers.

It starts like a tease. Barely a paper cut. Tony immediately checks his face as if he might shatter right then and there.

"Yes?"

His partner huffs and looks ready to bolt. Quickly, Loki wraps his free leg around him and squeezes. Shatter, he might, if Tony dares to stop now.

"That's fine, keep going."

"Lokes-"

"Please."

They both pause. Loki doesn't beg lightly.

"There's no need to be so hesitant."

"It's a knife, babe."

"It's a tool. It does as you bid it. What does it matter if you go too deep, there's nothing vital there."

Tony nods. He grips the handle and lowers the blade again. This time it glides.

He feels nothing but his heart thumping in anticipation, and the sensation of his nervous system reeling. Then very suddenly pain.

The first cut is the worst, the first cut is the worst, but oh does it burn. He fights to keep still as warmth floods the area and the stinging morphs into an exhilarating pressure.

"Perfect," he sighs. "Just like that."

"That didn't look like it felt good."

"It takes a minute. Do it again. Please."

Tony dances fingers down the hollow of his hip. "You'll be the death of me, I swear to god."

He cuts again, and Loki gets caught in a head rush. He can feel blood welling under his sensitized skin and coursing through his veins, his breathing comes at double pace. Rolling pleasure pools in his core.

"You're getting hard," Tony observes.

"Just a physical reaction."

With the taste of bile still clinging to his teeth he feels about as alluring as a sea slug. He covers himself with his hands and Tony looks a bit mournful.

Was that the wrong thing to say? The blade draws again and wipes out his concern.

His leg burns like the fires of Muspelheim. Tony's spare hand teases his chest and his head swims in a fog that numbs him to everything but the yearning tightness around his nipples and the growing sea of seidr in his stomach. When his lover's fingers massage the stiff buds he moans, long and low.

"You're bleeding."

"So?" Loki slurs, his head listing to the side.

"So what should we do about it?"

Madly he pictures Tony licking it up, which makes him snort because Tony would never.

"Whatever you want, sir," he mumbles. The hormones are hitting him rather fast.

The weight of a towel presses against all the cuts at once and his body seizes. A strangled yelp escapes his mouth and quickly morphs into hysterical laughter.

"Bqllr—fuck, that hurt!"

"You said you didn't care," his tormentor taunts. "Maybe next time you should actually think about what you're saying."

Loki kicks him in the back, which earns him the dubious 'punishment' of Tony trapping his foot under his weight. Smiling, he struggles just enough to test the limits, and sinks deeper into the quiet place at the back of his mind. He always liked being held down.

A proportional rush of euphoria washes over him after the agony fades, and with that he's properly helpless. Tony could do nearly anything and he wouldn't care at all. He's floating.

"Mmm, sir..."

The towel is discarded. Another flashbulb of hurt, another wave of adrenaline. Tony's expression turns heated and he digs his hands under Loki's arse, fingers pressing into the winding ridges and making him blush.

It seems Loki's convinced him. The Jotun lines inform him that his love is having fun, the emotion bubbling up in his mind and filling it with clouds. His body is a live wire.

The slightest movement of air stands his hair on end and sends tingles down his spine. The solid mass of his lover's body tangled with his feels like an anchor.

"You like this," Loki drawls, the syllables stretched by his challenging grin.

"Only because you like it, you kinky little masochist." Tony gives him a sidelong leer.

Loki arches, something uncomfortable and deeply arousing sprouting at the tone, new and dagger sharp.

"You like that? You like me calling you dirty names?"

"You're getting distracted." He hides his face in his elbow even as a guilty smile spreads. "You're supposed to be cutting me up."

"You want more?" Tony raises his brows.

Loki bites his lip and nods, his eyes shuttering closed. He wants whatever Tony deigns to give him.

"Hmmm, do you think you deserve more? I feel like I'm rewarding you for being bad."

"I'll be perfectly behaved from now on, I promise."

The faintest graze of wicked metal pulls a gasp from him, the tip traveling a meandering path over the mounds of his breasts and passing dangerously, deliciously over his sensitive nipples. He grips the sheets, an entrancing sort of fear augmenting the good feelings.

"I bet you will," Tony whispers. "I bet you'll be real good with my knife at your throat."

Affirmative words come out as more of a mewl that he would normally be deeply embarrassed by. His skin burns wherever the knife goes and the uncertainty of where his master will mark him next has his mind constructing elaborate fantasies. In neat rows down his ribs? Jagged stripes around his hips?

Pain lances his trapped leg and inspires images of bloody stars peppering his neck and lopsided hearts trailing down his back. Tony puts his hand over Loki's mouth because he's making a terrible racket, and all he wants—after what feels like a lifetime, still—is Tony's name etched permanently on his heart.

Wet, disarming kisses follow the trail the knife left and suck softly at his nipples while the pain gradually migrates from one side to the other. Humming, he soaks in the confounding soup of endorphins and drapes his arms over Tony's back.

"You're getting distracted again," he mumbles, because he feels he may die of embarrassment if Tony spoils him any more.

The gentle kisses become nibbles and finally wonderful, pinching teeth. Loki pants, the world outside of him and Tony a blur of unfocused matter. His lover's teeth pull, the skin stretching and aching and singing as he draws slowly away.

"Two more," Tony says breathlessly.

"That's all?"

It's a wonder he can speak. Tony gives his other nub the same rough treatment.

"You've already got ten, any more and you're gonna look like a really cute cutting board."

"Your dirty little cutting board," Loki sing-songs.

Tony winces. "I just fucked up, didn't I?"

Very much so. Loki's already wondering which vegetables Tony could chop without breaking the skin.

"Whatever you're thinking, stop it."

"Come now, can't you see it? The knife firm in your grasp, my body spread for your pleasure... tomato juice trickling down my luscious rump."

"Did you just–" Tony cackles, his forehead perched on Loki's chest and rolling.

"And once you've used my back you can turn me over and," Loki snorts, "and marinade your big, meaty sausage in my-"

"If you say sauce I'm out of here," Tony slaps his chest and Loki howls.

Long after his partner has caught his breath he's still gasping, holding only to burst anew.

"You're high off your ass aren't you?"

Loki shakes his head no. Evil fingers find his vulnerable spots and make him squirm.

"Don't lie to me, Slugger, I know your weakness."

"No–" Loki slaps the air and pulls his knees in. "Not the tickling, I hate the tickling!"

"Then close your eyes and lay still for me," Tony's eyes soften, his fingers winding in Loki's hair and pulling just so. He sighs, steadying his breath with the help of His guiding hand. He can't think straight, all he can do is lay there, his body humming from Tony's marks and his attention.

He shuts his eyes obediently, and Tony's bristled lips cover his in a claiming, controlled kiss. His back arches automatically, aching for more as his lover exhales warm breath on his neck.

"Hmmm, that's better. That's my sweet boy."

Shyness blooms in his chest. Not a soul in the universe has ever thought him sweet.

"Is that right? Boy?" Tony pauses.

Loki's eyes feel glassy, an indescribable emotion taking him over because it doesn't matter. Tony could call him anything. He could call him sweet or disgusting or filthy or gorgeous, but he chose long ago to call him nothing for the sake of safety. And now suddenly he's calling him something, and he's stopping just to check, and that's…

"That's right," Loki's lip quivers. "That's right, sir."

Strong hands pull him by the hips so he's laying in Tony's lap and it makes him feel a kind of small that he quietly craves.

The flat side of the blade cools a stripe between his breasts. Steady fingers careen over the bumps of scabbed skin on his leg and the tender, red-hot tug makes him whimper and twitch.

"I said hold still," Tony whispers. A superior, mocking lilt that elicits a primal hunger.

He wants more of that. His life has made it abundantly clear that he is unfit to rule, unable to reason, and now all he wants is to be free of free will and all the pain—bad pain, agony, harm—that comes with it. He wants Tony to slice him open and hold his shriveled, dysfunctional heart in His hands.

"Make me," he dares, as open as he's ever been. Even with his eyes closed he hears Tony's intake of breath.

"Soon," he vows. His hand comes to Loki's throat and he nearly cries for how long he's wanted that. So long he nearly forgot. "Just as soon as I've got the ropes down I'm gonna blow your goddamn mind, but for now I need you to do it yourself."

Loki hurries to obey, hooking his ankles behind Tony's back and gripping the rungs of the headboard in his hands.

"Good boy," Tony purrs. His hand constricts Loki's throat and he feels alive, safe, better, so much better.

The knife rests just under His hold, a silent threat poised parallel with his collarbone.

"Deep breath."

Loki inhales. He waits while Tony strokes the underside of his jaw.

"And out."

Loki obeys, and as the air leaves his lungs Tony cuts. Far.

The second half of his breath becomes a loud, ringing shout. His eyes fly open, but Tony doesn't seem to care. The first cut to his torso fills his whole chest with warmth. The second drives him into complete oblivion. He doesn't register anything for what feels like eons. He is pliant and unmoored.

Only when metal touches his lip does he snap to awareness, his lagged consciousness thinking it a knife when it is only a spoon.

"Open." Tony pets his hair. Loki worries he has fallen into a memory. But it's not apple or ice. It's yogurt. Plain yogurt with slices of overripe tomato.

"Hullo, sir."

Tony assesses his condition.

"Hey, you. Welcome back."

The spoon returns. He allows Tony to feed him, even as the tomato stirs up a peel of laughter that makes chewing impossible.

"What?" his master feigns ignorance. Loki barely chokes down his food. Then he snickers long and fiercely.

"Sorry to burst your bubble you kinky little fuck, but I have no intention of cooking anything on your ass," Tony smirks.

Loki rolls his eyes, and attempts to get his bearings.

Tony has him cradled in his lap, the covers pulled up to his chin. A pile of discarded disinfectant wipes litters the bedside, as well as a bowl with the now clean spoon perched on the rim.

It's still morning judging by the light in the living room. His thighs hurt like hell.

"What's your number?" Tony asks, preparing another spoon of yogurt and scraping the excess on the edge of the bowl.

The old discomforts are still there, but the haze in his mind makes them more tolerable. Compared to the fire in his legs his headache is barely noticeable, and that too is a boon.

Best of all his seidr is higher than it has been in years. A veritable font of energy overflowing in his core where there used to be withering cinders.

"Six," he says confidently. Tony slings an arm across his chest and runs fingers up and down his side.

A full spoon comes to his lip, but he wants to see the marks right away. He pulls the covers back and is dismayed to find his chest empty, although he vividly remembers the pain and the knife. Had he dreamed it? Surely not.

His lover smiles something mild and mischievous.

"Back of the knife. I wasn't sure you'd buy it..."

"It felt real–" Loki breaks off. The covers slip down enough to reveal angry red on his thighs.

They're lovely. Straight and deep, arranged in symmetrical rows of five. They'll last him a few days if he's lucky.

Entranced he traces the cluster of scabs, giving in to the urge to pick at the edges with the tip of his fingernail.

"None of that," Tony bats his hand away. "Eat."

Loki swallows only so he can look again sooner.

His memory is a fog, and so the symmetry is a pleasing surprise.

"We did both legs?"

"You don't remember?"

His lover pulls him to lean against his chest, laying soft kisses on his temple. Pleasant sparks travel through his limbs. He hums.

"Perhaps next time you should leave a note. Property of Tony Stark. If lost please return to-"

Tony frowns. "You equated this to my drinking, and now you're talking about 'next time?'"

"It's not addictive."

"Anything that dumps that many chemicals in your brain is addictive."

Loki pouts, and turns his head at the next bite.

Tony sighs.

"I'm not saying no. Just establishing boundaries."

The hand on his hip moves to tip his head skyward so he's looking into Tony's eyes.

"And I'll keep the pain thing in mind when I'm planning our scenes. Alright?"

"Scenes?"

"Yeah, you know, our…" Tony cocks his head. "Perverted fantasy time?"

Loki blinks.

"That you are planning?"

Tony gives a boyish smile at odds with the very adult conversation.

"I thought a lot about what you said at the Christmas party. About starting over. New house, new everything?"

Loki sits up, shifting so they're face to face and the skin of his legs is pulling in a not-unpleasant way.

"Yes?"

Tony sets the spoon in the bowl and thinks.

"Well, I agree. I think we should start over. Do it right. All this time I've been winging it, and now I'm reading these books and…" Tony licks his lip, eyes flickering all over the room and finally settling back on him. "And I realized I've been a fucking prude about this."

"I don't know what these 'books' are telling you, but you've never-"

"No, I have," Tony runs a finger on Loki's bottom lip. Something tremulous and anticipatory curls up in his chest. "I'm not saying what we have isn't great, but between you and me it's the blind leading the blind. I'm the—the dom. I'm in charge, which makes it my job to do things right."

"I don't care what other people think is wrong or right," Loki scans his face. He's caught rather off guard, the carnal part of him very much intrigued but the rest of him deeply, justifiably concerned. Tony's adherence to edicts of morality is the reason they're in this mess to begin with. "Every moment we aren't fighting, I'm happy. Why must it be so complicated?"

"It's not, that's the thing. This is what's complicated. This thing where we dance around each other and tiptoe over the big, scary words. Having to read each other's minds all the time and then freaking out when we get it wrong? Compared to this, the other way would be a cake walk."

In the aftermath of last night's quarreling, Loki holds himself back from arguing about a book he hasn't read. He doesn't know what Tony expects, given that this is already the most communicative relationship Loki has ever taken part in. And yet even this is insufficient by these new standards?

Loki frowns, fidgeting. Even if he doesn't understand, he is perfectly capable of listening. And Tony did say one thing that unwinds a twisted, gnarled knot inside him.

"As you say, you are in charge," he says delicately, eyes low and following the folds of the sheet under his knees. "Whatever you wish, I will allow."

"O-kay, great, perfect. All in favor, good talk." Tony claps his hands once as if calling a meeting to close, then anxiously rubs his palms together.

"Go Perverts," Loki quips, slotting himself between Mister Stark's legs and finding a place to rest his head where his horns don't poke or prod.

"Ah yes, my old alma mater. I can still hear the whips cracking," Tony sighs in mock remembrance.

Loki chuckles and his… his dom joins him.

The fog gradually clears from his head, leaving him drowsy but light. Settled.

He wants to know more, or at least to interrogate Tony until he throws up his hands and gives Loki whatever books he's been ingesting. But he is warm under Tony's arm and steadily sliding towards the land of dreams, and so rather than bombard him with one thousand million questions he tugs Tony's hand to rest beside his lips.

"Are we still going to Jotunheim?" he asks.

"Tomorrow, if you're up to it."

"I'm up to it today," Loki yawns.

"I'll be the judge of that. For now you should catch up on sleep."

"Mmm, that does sound nice."

"Cause it is nice," Tony reaches over Loki's back to grab his tablet and read more of his pervert book.

"It is nice," Loki parrots.

Lazing through the rest of the morning, he sucks grateful hickeys into Tony's wrist while He works one-handed on his tablet, and allows his troubles to slip away until he's relaxed enough to sleep.

* * *

This story will be on haitus until Once Tamed and If You Had to Choose are complete. I apologize for the delay!


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